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- Netflix
- Jan 1, 2021
- Netflix
- Jan 1, 2021
Summary Set in the 1970s, conman Charles Sobhraj (Tahar Rahim) and his girlfriend Marie-Andrée Leclerc (Jenna Coleman) begin their crime spree in southeast Asia which catches the attention of Dutch diplomat Herman Knippenberg (Billy Howle) and his wife (Ellie Bamber) in this eight-part series inspired by real events. [Premiered originally in ...
- Netflix
- Jan 1, 2021
- Netflix
- Jan 1, 2021
Summary Set in the 1970s, conman Charles Sobhraj (Tahar Rahim) and his girlfriend Marie-Andrée Leclerc (Jenna Coleman) begin their crime spree in southeast Asia which catches the attention of Dutch diplomat Herman Knippenberg (Billy Howle) and his wife (Ellie Bamber) in this eight-part series inspired by real events. [Premiered originally in ...
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Metascore
Mixed or Average
Based on 18 Critic Reviews
59
50% Positive
9 Reviews
9 Reviews
44% Mixed
8 Reviews
8 Reviews
6% Negative
1 Review
1 Review
Metascore
Mixed or Average
Based on 18 Critic Reviews
59
50% Positive
9 Reviews
9 Reviews
44% Mixed
8 Reviews
8 Reviews
6% Negative
1 Review
1 Review
The added time and the measured work from the show’s core cast help to show the full psychological toll it takes to both evade justice and to attempt to see it delivered.
Serpentine (I see what you did there) storyline concerns aside, “The Serpent” is an effectively unsettling, fictionalized telling of the incredible and horrific series of kidnappings and murders orchestrated by one Charles Sobhraj, played to suave and oily perfection by Tahar Rahim.
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 14 User Ratings
7.1
79% Positive
11 Ratings
11 Ratings
7% Mixed
1 Rating
1 Rating
14% Negative
2 Ratings
2 Ratings
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 14 User Ratings
7.1
79% Positive
11 Ratings
11 Ratings
7% Mixed
1 Rating
1 Rating
14% Negative
2 Ratings
2 Ratings
The Serpent is certainly a slow burn, and it’s jumpy timeline will take some getting used to. But the lead performance by Rahim, and fine supporting performances by Coleman, Howle and Bamber help us stay engaged with the story.
With the local Thai police both corrupt and uninterested in the fate of ‘long-hairs’, Knippenberg becomes the detective figure in the subsequent story; once you grasped that, The Serpent became less slippery.
It tells the story, makes Sobhraj’s life look fairly glamorous, amid all that murder, and makes it clear enough that these young people had their futures taken from them in the cruellest of ways. But it is not a whodunnit, nor much of a why-they-dunnit: anyone who knows the story will have some idea of where it lands. It looks the part, and pulls the right strings, but, in the end, it left me a little cold.
As a standalone history, it leaves a lot to be desired. It feels as if the miniseries is an attempt to sell us on the fact that while this slice of history—various sunglasses and sapphires and all—is interesting, the full details of it are too difficult to dramatize fully.
The Serpent ends up being an infuriating blueprint for how bad storytelling choices, bad accents and an opaque central performance can thwart even the most inherently gripping of yarns.
Excellent drama adaption of a horrifying real life story. An enjoyable and tense series
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SEASON 1
No wonder a lot of woke critics don't like the show: The victims are white, naïve, hippies, the original version of woke cretins, that fall victims to their own simplistic, narrow-minded views of the world à la "Kathmandu is a paradise" ....through the hands of an anti-white hate-filled Asian racist.
Throw any woke idiot into Beijing, Tehran, Cairo or Istanbul today. Same thing would happen.
PS: I'm French, from a generation that remembers Sobhraj and I live in Asia. News: Asians look down on you, liberal ****. Since the 60's.
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SEASON 1